Did You See That

Well, that was a turn up for the book - I did not expect little George Sampson to come out on top, but the rain soaked dancer scooper the prize after the public vote. Ant and Dec asked him how he would feel performing for Prince Charles. I doubt this 14 year old really cares too much about dancing for the heir to the thone - this isn’t the 18th century - but I suspect he might be a little more interested in the £100,000 prize money which they had been curiously coy about that mentioning until that point.

Andrew Muir flopped a bit in the final with a fairly uninspiring version of Imagine. There’s no really soaring parts to that song and he didn’t convey emotion very well, so it was all a bit of a disaster and he got a strong slating from Amanda and Simon. Andrew hinted that he had been told to sing that song though which certainly adds a bit of intrigue. I don’t think we will be seeing much of Andrew Muir though.

I’d liked to have seen Gin and Kate win, as that dog might be the most amazing animal I’ve ever seen. I can see Gin being the star of TV adverts for sure, so hopefully it’s not the last we’ve seen of him.

Do you think the right act won Britain’t Got Talent?

I’m a bit of a Neil Diamond fan so was looking forward to this “Audience with” on Saturday night. Diamond didn’t disappoint with a superb mix of classic hits and his newer, critically acclaimed material. I’ve never really seen him in conversation before so it was interesting to see him answering questions. He came across as intelligent, charismatic, intense, funny and sensitive. The show was polished and even the programme titles seemed a tad classier than the usual ITV fayre.

I did feel a bit sorry for Neil Diamond though, as he was probably led to believe his audience would be celebrities - and there were some proper ones - but for the whole, it was some very low ranking celebs. Here’s a run down of some of the faces that stood out, in descending order of their celebrity status in my eyes…

• Dame Judi Dench - Genuine A Lister
• Tim Rice
• Barbara Windsor
• Michael Aspel
• Johnny Vegas
• Germain Greer
• Matt De Angelo
• Claire Balding
• Toby Anstiss
• Dom Littlewood
• =Richy Neville from 5
• =Kris Akabussi

I’ve given Richy Neville and Kris Akabussi joint last place. No offence to them, but maybe ITV should consider a smaller venue if those two warrant an invite.

Search for Neil Diamond at Amazon.co.uk

The attractive, female violin quartet, Escala, went through to the Britain’s Got Talent final last night, and deservedly so as they were great.

But one comment made by Simon and Piers really rankled with me. They both said the act was “original”. Original? Presumably they haven’t heard of Bond then, the other, well established, foursome of sexy girls on stringed instruments? Escala were very good but in no way could they be described as original as far as I can tell. And just in case you weren’t sure of the Bond homage, notice the song they did: “Live and Let Die” - a James Bond theme song.

Charlie Green crashed out of the competition last night after performing an original song on Britain’s Got Talent. I think everyone expected the talented little singer to do another standard, and I was taken aback by the sound of this unfamiliar song. At my first, my reaction was similar to the look of horror that Simon gave, but I have to admit that I was quite enjoying it by the end of the song … and today I can’t get it out of my head! “Music, singing… Jazz when it’s swinging - these are my favourite things…” It’s a catchy little song I think! But was certainly a brave, probably foolish, move when a safe choice might have got him through to the final.

Watch it again - what do you think of the song?

Wow, I was shocked: I expected David Archuleta to win American Idol but the title was snatched in the finale by David Cook. I didn’t see that coming! Anyway the best bit of the finale wasn’t from a David, it was from a George: George Michael singing Praying for Time after the final 12 had done a GM medley. Check it out…

Just a couple of thoughts that occured to me recently….

I noticed Darren is in trouble with his girlfriend, Libby, for keeping a naughty magazine under his bed. Not long ago his character was an internet entrepreneur. Don’t you think he would be able to get plenty of material on there without needing to keep magazines under his bed?! Seems like lazy writing to me, and why has he given up making a packet online anyway?

Talking of lazy writing, aren’t Heather and Hazel, now left I assume, both incredibly similar in that both characters use a pop singer as their reference point for almost everything else. Heather always refers to “George” (Michael). And Hazel looked to “Dolly” (Parton) for her inspiration. It’s not really believable for one character, but for two it’s just a bit pathetic to use the same writing device.

A streaker briefly interrupted proceedings at the Snooker World Championships yesterday. The clip below shows a glimpse of the action. The BBC seem like some prudish nanny determined to cover the eyes of the children by cutting away from the streaker and staying on Dennis Taylor until it was all over. Let’s not condone it for sure but come on, lighten up - it’s kinda funny to see an eccentric in action. By the way, I used to love the Snooker but have to say how cheap it looks these days with their new sponsors logo all the place.

The standout act from last night’s Britain’s Got Talent. This phenomenal 18 year old from Middlesbrough came on and did a song from the musical, Miss Saigon. He performed the first part when Simon interrupted and quite oddly said he didn’t like the song and could he do another. It was a weird contribution but probably just Simon hamming it up as usual. Dan didn’t have another song prepared so he was allowed to start again and gave an absolute belting performance of it. Check out the video of it from Youtube below…

The task this week was to come up with a concept for greetings cards and try to sell them in bulk to retailers like Clintons, Celebrations and Tesco. Michael was put in charge of team Alpha and Kevin headed up Renaissance.

Alpha settled on a “National Singles’ Day” - there was some conjecture on the spelling but I think they got it right - and Renaissance went for “Save Our Planet”, which were environmentally themed cards. The ridiculousness of sending a card to spread some kind of green message would have been obvious to most right thinking people, but fortunately for us viewers, the Apprentice doesn’t always attract right thinking people. Sara tried to volunteer other ideas in the car but was victim to Jen’s overbearing, aggressive hectoring which we had previously seen her deploy against Lucinda.

Despite having someone with commercial experience of pitching, Kevin decided he was “150% confident” that he could smash it out of the park himself. This was brilliant car crash TV as poor Kevin morphed into David Brent. By his every attempt to exhude confidence and gravitas, he made himself look increasingly ridiculous. Perhaps his lowest point was suggesting to Clintons that not buying the environmental cards would be “like the US saying they don’t care about pollution”.

The environmental idea was obviously doomed to failure from the offing, so it was no surprise when this was confirmed in the board room. Unable to comprehend that their idea was fatally flawed, the team instead formed a pack mentality and tried to put the blame onto Sara. Initiated by Jenny, Claire and Kevin saw a possible scapegoat emerging and in piled in behind her. It was ugly to see. Sir Alan was wise to the bullying that was going on and was able to see that Kevin was completely to blame and rightly fired him.

Poor Sara, after having to put up with her team trying to gang up and bully her out, got back to the house only have that boorish oaf Lee leading some new aggressive attack on her. It’s at times like that they the contestants can show how thoroughly unlikeable they can be, although it looked like Raef recognised the inappropriateness and was trying to end it.

He’s funny and a tad pompous, but Raef is surely the star of the show and must be a favourite to win.

What did you think of this week’s Apprentice?

Check out cool personalised Apprentice gifts!

Let me preface this post by saying that I love Heather on Eastenders and think it’s great that they feature characters of a larger figure, but…. I saw this Cabbage Patch Kid and can’t help but think it looks like a dead ringer for Heather…. what do you think?